Govt. cause of inner-city bad rap

This story has been amended to show that black males make up four in 10 inmates in prison or jail.

It would be easy to view Congressman Paul Ryan, who earlier this week characterized inner-city communities as being culturally lazy, as an out-of-touch politician.

That would be a mistake.

Mr. Ryan, just like Mitt Romney in his writing off of 47 percent of the country as freeloaders, understands quite well that to promote an agenda that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer he has to besmirch those disadvantaged by his policies.

It is called blaming the victim and it works because such nonsense fans the ugly cultural stereotypes to which so many still cling. In reality, poverty, joblessness and hopelessness in many inner cities are largely the product of government policies, such as the country's drug laws which have devastated many inner-city communities.

On any given day, black males make up four in 10 inmates in prison or jail, and while people of color use drugs at the same rate as whites, they nevertheless make up two-thirds of all prison inmates who are drug offenders. Once released from prison, many of these ex-prisoners find themselves ostracized from the larger community, often finding it difficult to find jobs.

Steve O'Neil, executive director of Ex-Prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement, told the story of a recent ex-prisoner who underwent three job interviews in which he was tested on his experience, background and education.

Although, this individual scored 100 percent on two of those tests and 90 percent on the other, he was not hired for any of the "warehouse" positions he was seeking, because of his CORI record.

"Yes, there are a minority of people who have become depressed and have given up, but that is not laziness. That is oppression," Mr. O'Neil said.

The state is spending "billions of dollars incarcerating people and taking people away from their families, but it is spending very little on drug treatment or job creation," Mr. O'Neil said, noting his organization is part of a statewide coalition pushing the state to spend more on job creation, training and support in inner-city communities.

Meanwhile, joblessness among inner-city young people is not a result of their parents not modeling good work habits, as Mr. Ryan would claim. It is because they cannot find jobs, according to Sam Martin, the executive director of the Worcester Youth Center.

Mr. Ryan, Mr. Martin suggested, doesn't appear to understand that many young people do not have the same opportunities that he may have had.

"There are not enough places to put young people," he said.

"The jobs that young people would normally fill have disappeared. Manufacturing jobs have become more sophisticated, and jobs like working at Wal-Mart are being filled by adults who are using those jobs to provide for their families."

Of course, joblessness and poverty do not reside solely in the inner city. According to the Brookings Institution, 16.4 million of the nation's 48.5 million poor were living in suburbs as of 2011. And over the past decade, while poverty rose 28.7 percent in U.S. cities, it rose 63.6 percent in the suburbs.

Mr. Ryan, whose debt reduction policies rely heavily on bilking the middle class and on cutting government assistance to the homeless, the elderly, people with disabilities and children living in poverty, is not out of touch.

He is simply trying to explain away the immorality of his economic agenda.